Preventive Maintenance Software

Preventive maintenance is routine maintenance for equipment and machinery which is done at regular scheduled intervals. This helps keep the equipment running smoothly and prevents any unanticipated major breakdowns and failure. It is basically about anticipating the need for maintenance before the need arises. Preventive maintenance requires a lot of scheduling and organized planning and it often becomes difficult for organizations that have a lot of equipment to look after. That’s where they can rely on preventive maintenance software instead.

There are four types of preventive maintenance.

The first type is scheduled/timed maintenance. This means keeping time-based maintenance checks and getting your equipment/machinery serviced at those times.

The second type is usage-based maintenance. Similar to time-based, this means that the machinery is checked and serviced once it has been used for a certain number of units, or every time the reading on the machinery reaches a certain specified level.

The third type is predictive maintenance. This means that managers use certain sensors, etc, which let them know when the machine needs some work. For example, a machine may start getting hot, so the sensors relay those signals to the managers who schedule maintenance checks.

Then there is prescriptive maintenance. This is the same as predictive maintenance except the smart technology used in this enables the software to give the managers a “prescription” for the problem. As in, if the machine is getting too hot, it may advise lowering the speed by a specific amount to make the running smoother and fix the temperature.

If you have machinery that regularly breaks down and often needs servicing, preventive maintenance can save you a lot of time, money, and human resources spent on fixing the problem. Machines breaking down can cause delays in production and may take a long time to get fixed depending on the problem. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small-sized company or a startup, if you have machinery that is essential to the running of your business, preventive maintenance is always better than reactive.

In fact, preventive maintenance software for small companies and enterprises is readily available and can save you so much time and money.

First, you have to establish what you would like to achieve with the program and lay down your goals, whether it is to cut costs, reduce downtime etc., and finish your preventive maintenance planning.

Next, you have to create KPIs by using maintenance metrics to measure your performance, to gauge whether your preventive maintenance program is working.

You have to make sure that you’re making use of the right technology which embraces the concept of preventive maintenance. This means you look for the right maintenance scheduling software, like a CMMS, which helps you manage your maintenance with ease.

Then comes the most important step of training your team and then bringing the plan into action by implementing the program.

After that, you create a preventive maintenance checklist to help you track your KPIs and manage them effectively.

Lastly, you keep updating and fine-tuning the program so that you know when any flaws occur and you can fix them before any damage occurs.

Preventive maintenance scheduling may include things like lubrication, cleaning, oil changes, repairs and adjustments, inspecting, replacing and fine-tuning, and scheduled overhauls. What makes all this come in “preventive maintenance” is the fact that it’s done before the need actually arises, minimizing the risk of breakdowns and downtime.

A preventive maintenance checklist is a list of tasks that guide a technician through the maintenance. It lets him know how many times the machinery has been repaired, how often it needs repairing, etc. It also contains KPIs to be fulfilled by the preventive maintenance program. Building preventive maintenance checklists is part of developing preventive maintenance programs.

Preventive maintenance procedures are the procedures listed down in the preventive maintenance checklist on how to handle and solve the issue when certain problems occur or something goes wrong with the machinery or equipment. They’re a list of tasks to be performed in a particular order depending on the type of preventive maintenance you are following.

For example, if you’re following usage-based maintenance then the procedure would state to call a technician when the machinery reaches a certain meter reading etc., and then it would give the technician machinery history and any machinery specific instructions necessary.

There are many benefits of preventive maintenance and the first one is that you save a lot of resources spent on fixing machinery that has broken down. This includes time, money, and labor which is used for long periods to fix something that could have been prevented from breaking down in the first place.

Secondly equipment downtime, therefore, is significantly reduced, and the assets have a much longer life. Good repair procedures also bring improved efficiency to your equipment.

Then, there the interruptions caused by machinery breaking down and disrupting your workflow are also significantly reduced.

Lastly, there is improved workplace safety and better compliance with safety standards for work.